DISSENT REVISITED

In all honesty, I have to wonder what the motivation is for activism and dissent towards the current administration. I can only come up with one reason; fashionable liberal practices are to blame. I have stated this before, but with facts such as 29 Democrats joining 48 Republicans to pass a Senate resolution 77-23 in October of 2002, why is it that "Bush is to blame"? Only hours earlier the House passed an identical resolution 296-133.

I wonder if the majority of who I will call the seemingly confused have a working knowledge of the American government. Now, I don't claim to be an expert on government in the slightest, but how can you just show up at the picket line carrying a placard without having all or at least, some, of the facts? One of the reasons that I will point out this liberal mindset is because it seems as if they have the loudest voice. By loudest, I don't mean most heard; rather incessant bickering. It seems like the most common cry is: "No War". Well, since October of 2002 there has been a war going on, so that's a lost cause. Then there is the "Impeach Bush" crowd. I would love to have these utterly confused individuals realize that the man did, in fact, win two elections. There was no conspiracy, there was no scam and Karl Rove was not in a damp basement somewhere busily manipulating the incoming votes. I am not saying that you can't teach an old dog a new trick, but let's be realistic for a moment: the Nintendo generation has the lock-down on computers, not politicians with bigger things to worry about such as running the country vice uncovering the latest email and TCP/IP packet hacks. Get over it, already.

Furthermore, the reason for the "Impeach Bush" placard zombies mystifies me nearly beyond belief. If their entire argument is based on the whole "No War" gig, it doesn't hold much (if any) logical ideal at all. Just look at some of the Democratic powerhouse Senators who helped pass this now famous resolution: Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Tom Daschle, Christopher Dodd, Dianne Feinstein, John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, Zell Miller and Harry Reid are among the most notable names. There are in fact 19 others who voted the same way. At this point, spirited debate ensued as to whether or not the joint resolution was too broad and too early to initiate military action. This would mean that diplomatic efforts to enforce the UN resolutions failed, which seems accurate to me. You know the rest of the story, we did engage in conflict with Iraq. While they are showing solidarity for an anti-war effort (some even call it a "movement"), some of the very people that they supposedly align themselves with voted for military action. It just seems confusing to me why that is taking place.

Consider the following: Iraq's chemical weapons program (which sources indicate as starting in the 1960's) was a rather large, complex operation with the capacity to produce as much as 700 tons (varying sources indicate up to 14,000 tons) of agents per year. These agents consisted of mustard gas as well as two different types of nerve agents. Mustard gas is no gem, but nerve agents are far more nasty creatures. The two agents in question are Sarin and Tabun; VX may have also been manufactured. Iraq maintains (this is speaking to the days of the UN weapons inspections) that they have never deployed nerve agents, but evidence suggests that Tabun may have been used against Iranian forces in 1987. Then there is the greater-known incident involving the gassing of Kurds in 1988; mustard gas and nerve agents may have been deployed. There is no denying that this happened. Perhaps because Iraq was not a signatory at the Chemical Weapons Convention the displaced regime felt as if they were exempt from rules such as UN Resolution 687 mandating the destruction of chemical weapons? I realize that at that time, Iraq was a sovereign nation and that they have the right to not sign. However, given the many times that Hussein decided to break the cease-fire agreement, this is relevant. There has been an extensive amount of chemicals destroyed; both finished and precursor chemicals, mind you, as well as the vector for delivery by the UN Special Commission. What about their biological warfare program? They had the capability and technical knowledge to create anthrax, botulinum toxin, aflatoxin, and gas gangrene as well as the vector for delivery in a variety of form-factors. I won't mention the nuclear program and the procurement of black-market [weapons grade] uranium and plutonium to produce fissile material by Iraq. I will leave some research up to you, reader.

The mention of these three threats (nuclear, biological and chemical) which many a liberal would like to deny exists; is to simply point out that Iraq did have the capability for all three. They were formerly actively engaged in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. I don't know why it is so difficult for some people to grasp that.
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Sources:

The Resolution
WMD Research
Iraq Timeline